Bollywood Box Office: Interesting Week At The Movies Ahead!

The original Bourne and its desi version will vie for boxoffice space this week .

First the Indian Bourne. In Rajeev Jhaveri’s Fever Rajeev Khandelwal plays a professional assassin who wakes up from a coma with a memory loss.The Bourne-like situation is bouyed by three lovely ladies .Two of them Catrina Munro and Gemina Atkinson are recognizable foreigners while our own Guahar Khan brings up the rear.

But hang on!The original Jason Bourne, Matt Damon returns this week. The film,being released in India a week after its international release , would have Hindi Tamil and Telugu versions. So Rajeev’s Bourne-again avatar won’t have it easy.

Neither would Arshad Warsi-Boman Irani helmed The Legend of Michael Mishra, a quirky comedy set in Patna directed by the award-winning Manish Jha of Matrabhumi fame. This is Manish’s first film in 10 years .It looks like Munnabhai without Sanjay Dutt . Absence of star-value would make it difficult for the film to get an initial audience. Manish would just have to count on word-of-mouth.

The potentially big little film of the week is Soumendra Padhi’s heartwarming bio-pic Budhia Singh Born To Run, the real-life story of the 5-year old sprinter(played by Mayur Mahendra Patole) and his coach(Manoj Bajpai). Those who have seen the film say it has the potential to be another Karate Kid, if not Chariots Of Fire.

Perhaps the single biggest threat of the week comes from Suicide Squad the big-ticket Hollywood money spinninng yarn, the first in the franchise about three of the scummiest heroes brought together to save the earth.

Admittedly Suicide Squad which opens worldwide this Friday is the biggest boxoffice attraction this season.Warner Brothers hopes to see unprecedented numbers for this one, although the film is not being dubbed in Indian language.

But the real killers at the boxoffice are the two big films being released next Friday, namely Ashutosh Gowariker’s Mohenjo Daro and Tinu Suresh Desai’s Rustom.

Opines trade analyst Atul Mohan, “In some cases the more the merrier is not applicable.It certainly doesn’t work at the boxoffice. Many are appearing for this Friday’s test. Let’s see who is the best. Michael Mishra and Budhia Singh are big amongst the releases of this week, also Suicide Squad. But next week we have this years two biggest titles clashing. So if any of the releases of this week are able to do well and get acclaim where and how many screens will they get next week to survive or cover cost?That’s the question.”

Vaibhav Choudhary